


meal time

by kujos



Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Cats, Character Study, Fluff, Gen, POV Outsider, POV Second Person, byleth-centric, maybe thats a stretch idk, when u spam the dining hall over and over all day
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-23
Updated: 2019-09-23
Packaged: 2020-10-26 12:18:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,524
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20742089
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kujos/pseuds/kujos
Summary: As a Knight of Seiros, you often see that new professor rushing around Garegg Mach. However, sometimes her actions can be confusing, to put it lightly. (aka what are npcs thinking when you spam mealtime 8 times in a row)





	meal time

Your eyes caught on a familiar head of dark blue hair from across the dining hall. You hadn’t gotten a chance to meet the new professor, but it would be hard not to know about her with the way everyone was so drawn to her. With your usual routine taking you throughout the monastery on patrol, you often saw her, but she always seemed too busy for you to approach her. Sometimes she was chatting with her students, sometimes she seemed to be on a mission to hunt someone down and have tea with them, but her path never crossed far enough into your own.

On this particular day, you were assigned to kitchen duty. You had gotten an injury on one of the few missions that took you outside the monastery, so your captain told you to make yourself useful elsewhere. The professor dropped in at breakfast time, requesting a triple order of sweet bun trios to share with two of her students. She took the three plates from you with ease, setting them down on a nearby table. You tried not to stare, but something about her made it hard to keep your eyes away. Maybe she got it from Jeralt. Two girls appeared soon after, taking their seats across from the professor and idly chit chatting with each other. One was taller, with long blonde hair and a dreamy expression, the other had a shock of orange hair, with two small buns tied off near the nape of her neck.

After the three of them finished, the professor was in front of you again, asking for three servings of pheasant. Students came and left, but the professor stayed. You were sure she had eaten with everyone in her house, and now it seemed she was inviting even students in other houses. You caught sight of Edelgard and a dark haired man who seemed to constantly shadow her sitting at her table, Edelgard flashing a charming smile and the man doing his best not to glower. He had an intimidating aura around him, but Edelgard and the professor didn’t seem phased. Edelgard seemed too focused on hanging onto the professors every word to take note of anything else happening in the dining hall. Even as far removed from the situation as you were, you knew each house leader was wishing they could nab the child of The Blade Breaker to teach them. It wasn't surprising when she chose the Blue Lions, given how Dimitri caught her every moment he could to talk to her about the members of his house and how great it would be to receive combat training from her. You could almost smell the smoke coming from Edelgard's gaze when he entered the hall and took a seat beside the professor with a smile.

"Well, we must be on our way. Come, Hubert," Edelgard stood, the scowling man already a step ahead of her and fetching their plates to bring back to whoever was on dish washing duty that day. Dimitri paid them no mind, striking up a conversation with the professor. Your view was obscured with a stoic face, someone new coming to order. He had dark skin and white hair, and despite his serious expression you could sense softness beneath those eyes. He threw a glance back at the young prince and the professor behind him, before ordering onion gratin stew for the three of them.

Lunch time became dinner time, and you wondered how the professor was eating all of that food without getting sick. You had overheard Dimitri joking about how he had never seen her eat so much after their celebratory dinners, but you never imagined it would be to this extent. Seven meals in seven hours? Even the most gluttonous students would stop at 3 or 4. She wasn't even breaking a sweat, simply smiling at students as she called them over and ordered food for them to eat together. The sun began to set, and the professor approached to order what you hoped would be her last meal of the day. Some fish skewers to share with the other professors at the academy. It was a highly unpopular dish, and you were surprised that anyone would order it at all. Although the professor was full of surprises, you doubted that anyone would appreciate the flavor of the gobies. No matter what seasoning you put on them, there was a persistent flavor of mud, due to them eating up dirt and sand to form their burrows. Even poaching the fish left a dry texture. Frankly, you were unsure why they even stayed on the menu, but people still brought in gobies every now and then with a request to grill them up. 

You watched her carefully as she returned to the table. Manuela groaned about her hangover so loudly that you could see the other dining hall residents rolling their eyes, and Hanneman chided her for her reckless behavior at a similar volume. Your eyes stayed on the professor’s plate, ignoring the arguing that everyone in the monastery had grown accustomed to. You watched as she lifted up a skewer to her mouth, waited for a moment when her dinner guests were too focused arguing to look at her, and then slipped it into her sleeve.

“Professor, I hope next time you invite me out to a candlelit dinner we will be dining on something more exciting than,” Manuela looked over to her and swallowed, as if just saying the next words would hurt her, “Airmid Gobies…”

Hanneman grimaced, looking like he wanted to agree, but he kept any comments to himself. He simply glanced at the professor as she gave them both a simple nod. They finished their dinners, Manuela and Hanneman reluctantly, and the professor slipping all of hers into the shadows of her sleeves. They said their goodnight to the professor, and the two of them headed off to their quarters for the evening.

It seemed she was finally on the move, getting up from the table and strolling to the door. You hurried to take off your apron and follow her as stealthily as you could. Keeping your distance from her as she descended the steps towards the greenhouse, you watched her turn toward the fishing pond and head over to one of the unused corners which had become storage for crates and barrels. She stopped and turned suddenly, her eyes landing on you. Your mind scrambled for a second, trying to think of a way to make yourself look busy, but in those thirty seconds you knew you weren't going to fool anyone.

A grey cat bounded up to the professor and rubbed its cheek against her leg. She leaned down to pet it, then straightened back up and looked at you again.

“There’s a lot of cats in this monastery.” Her tone was flat, but a soft smile played at her lips. It was an expression that you had only seen her wear while speaking to her favorite students, and you were surprised to be graced with it as well. Two more cats came over, waking from their nap on the dock at the sound of her voice. They held their tails high as they scurried towards her, one meowing expectantly as soon as it sat down. She crouched and dropped the fish skewers from her sleeves, one in front of each cat. They didn't waste any time before digging in, and as they ate she ran her fingers over their fur. She seemed especially fond of the small black and white cat, which had been meowing at her just minutes ago. Her thumb rubbed underneath its chin, and it purred loud enough that you could hear it from your spot a few feet away.

You didn’t know quite what to say. Most of the time it seemed the professor was just going through the motions, giving short responses that only gave as much information as was needed. Right now, she seemed at peace. You weren't sure if you had ever seen her take a moment to just idle, instead of running around trying to find and return lost items, or taking on missions to busy herself for the entire day.

“You know, next time you can just ask for fish for the cats... instead of torturing the other professors.” You shifted your weight from foot to foot as she lifted her head.

Her head tilted, and she regarded you for a moment before responding. You could practically see the gears turning before every response she delivered.

“That would be much appreciated. By Manuela and Hanneman as well, I bet.” You swore you caught a chuckle, before she was up with a whirl of her coat. She had swiped up the fish bones from the cats, evidenced by the lack of anything left on the ground and the way they trailed after her as she left. You couldn't help but stare at her back for a few moments, thinking that maybe you understood why she always seemed to have a crowd of people eager to follow her. 

**Author's Note:**

> wow ok so i haven't written for a hot second. lately i've been pretty deep into fe3h, and was talking with my best friend about how we both end up doing the meal time activity over and over because of having too many activity points to know what to do with. she brought up byleth pretending to eat, and i said maybe shes just powerful af and can eat that much. i decided to do a bit of both in this fic. also i dunno how the hell to tag this but anyway thanks for reading!


End file.
